Just wondering

In the journey of my life, I had attempted to stop drinking, to stop porning, many times. Earnest prayer, vows to God, promises to loved ones, applying will power, powerful resolve, really wanting to, they all failed. I relapsed, over and over again. The periods of sobriety might have been 2 hours, it might have been two months, but I would fall into the ditch of shame again. Until I went to treatment and was introduced to the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. For some reason, at this time, the obsession to drink and to porn was lifted. Taking those steps saved my life, walking those steps keeps me alive. Step work, service work, and unity. Being united with you.

I had struggled all summer with self-pity and anger. I could not shake it, could not pretend it did not exist. Until that day when I was reading Best of Bill while sitting on a beach and saw all my emotional dependencies, saw how crippling they are, and prayed to be free of them. And I was, the burden of sadness was lifted. The sun was shining upon my path and I felt that glorious freedom. I thought I had found the answer.

And then last week happened. There I was, feeling like I was sitting in the pig pen, mud a foot thick, full of you know what, and pissing down rain. Feeling desperately hopeless. This business of trying to be free of emotions, of thinking that my life will be better when I am free of the messy emotions, emotions I don't want to share with anyone, wanting to keep them locked up and safe, the ones that keep breaking out of that box, the ones who's name tags keeping falling off. They just keep on coming back. Unwanted guests that keep showing up at the meeting.

Breaking the grip of the emotions by just talking about it. With my sponser, with my spouse, with my friends, with my group.

I keep looking for a member of AA who is going to tell me that, "Yes, damn it, it happened. Just like the obsession to drink was lifted, the emotional cycle was broken. I am serene, all the time." So far, nope. What I do hear is advice around using the steps to deal with the outfall of our emotions, that in time it does get better but never perfect, that it's in God's hands, that acceptance is key.

Time takes time.

A question for you. Is the desire for a career change something like wanting to do a geographical? If I force the issue, am I going to find myself with the same issues with a different employer? How do I trust my own motives when it comes to a career change that will affect my family? I guess what it really boils down to is how do I trust my own motives?

Thanks for reading.

Photo Credit: AF Photography

More, please

It's time to report in, been a while.

Early this week, I went on an emotional binge. Found a 40 pounder of self-pity and swallowed it all down. I needed to be understood. I needed to be needed. Was going to force my poor partner to understand just how trapped I was. How my life needed to change, I couldn't go on living in these conditions. I even started to think of ending my life, it wasn't worth the pain. Self-pity and anger, a deadly combination.

Lost sight of my Higher Power's stage direction and decided I was going to play the victim.

How is it that when I have something good in my life (and it can be anything), I am never content with what I have. If I go camping, playing in the surf, I become angry on the way back home, when reality starts kicking in? I really enjoy the one course I am taking, and I become angry because I felt betrayed by my employer, forced back to work, forced to withdraw from full time university. I want more. If we are playing board games, and perchance I win, I want to repeat that experience. Even at work, if the job becomes technical and I bury myself in that work, I just want to stay in that experience, my brain afloat in trying to find solutions. One would think that I have never heard of moderation. Can I have more, please?

I've made all the amends trying to repair the damage of earlier this week. It's going to take a while. I carry some shame, as well as guilt, from my earlier behaviours. The guilt is dealt with by making the amends. The shame by telling myself that I am not a bad man, just another person in recovery.

I've been in that place of emotional binging many times. The length of the binge gets shorter and shorter but it seems I can't avoid that spot. I have reassurance from reading Thomas Moore, when he describes life as moving in circles. Circumambulations. How, in each revolution, I still have much to learn, understand, and accept about my own life. Life is a wheel so hang on tight, circumferential forces are trying to through us off.

I am so thankful for the tools of recovery. For simple slogans and understanding people. That I don't have to be perfect, just have a desire to stop drinking. I am also thankful for new comers. So if I get asked to share, I remember what it was like and what happened. Sometimes I forget. I am so happy I am sober and clean today. That even in that emotional surge, I never drank or porned. So grateful to be here with you today.

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If you have an hour to spare, visit the CBC Radio program Tapestry podcast and find the podcast titled "Filling the God Shaped Void - Gabor Mate" Mary Hines, the host of the program interviews Gabor Mate, a physician working in Vancouver, Canada's, skid row. It's a discussion of spirituality, addiction, and self.

Photo Credit - AlbeJTD

Who is next?

I've been able to keep one class going after I had returned to work. An evening class about sociology. One of the topics that keeps rambling through my head is about the deserving and the undeserving. Who makes the choice about who has access to social services or financial support? I guess the concept is about how different schools of thought (conservative, liberal, or socialist are some of such schools) influence social welfare programs and who is allowed access to those programs.

So I think about, (who else?), me. When I did step three, I turned my will and life over to the care of a power greater than myself. I allowed myself to take direction from a greater power and as I did I started to get sober. The obsession to drink, to porn, to continuously numb myself was lifted from me. It is a gift beyond measure, a gift called life. The steps move on towards emotional sobriety as well. For me, that means a healthy measure of self-acceptance. I am who I am and nor can I force myself to be anyone different. That acceptance is not permission to stop moving and growing but it is permission to stop beating on myself. I grow and change as I continue on this journey of sobriety.

One of the things I have assumed is God's will for my life is that it would be helpful to love the person that is right in front of me. When I think of the deserving and the undeserving, I end up seeing my own prejudices and how they cause me to view others. Unconsciously, I make decisions about who is worthy of my time, who do I want to be with, who do I want to help? Does that person need to be talked to during the smoke break? Should I offer to sponsor another? Did they speak the right words when they shared? My fears give me direction as well. Self-pity gives me some other direction. (No wonder I feel lost every once in a while.)

Earlier this summer, I was at a meeting and listened to someone share who was really struggling in their fourth year of sobriety. His share resonated with me, his struggles so similar to mine, his pain was my pain. I was asked to share next, and spoke of how I was experiencing the same sort of things in my fourth year. Then I shared of what tools I was using to stay sober, of how important "one day at a time" and "this shall pass" was, how valuable the telephone was, how working with others was so powerful. The fellow who shared after me was angry. He spoke on the fallacy of struggling in the fourth year, how if we worked our program right we wouldn't be reacting to our circumstances the way we were. No suggestions as to how to improve, we were just labelled as "bad."

I use that as an example of how our own values and beliefs create our view of the world. How difficult it is to break through and see differently. I like the metaphor of seeing the world through God's eyes. My Higher Power has the attributes of compassion, patience, kindness, and love. Can I see all others through those eyes? I hope to.


Photo credit: chrismar

Not my way

I remember this game which I played as a child, I believe it was called Labyrinth. It was a wooden board that could tilt in four directions. The object was to control the marble by tilting the board, running the marble through a maze and prevent the marble from falling down the traps (holes in the board.)

I'm feeling like that marble today, my circumstances giving my life direction. I've had to withdraw from 4 classes and return to work. I'm still enrolled in one evening class (hurrah!) The choice to return was made by both my partner and I. I feel, well, deeply sad.

The mood at work is darker than I remember it. In speaking with various workmates yesterday, it was if I was talking to prisoners. It is surreal in that place of employment. There are some that are trying their best to be optimistic, some who have given up. Most of us who were laid off and are now returned to work have not been given meaningful work. It's like they have parked us, placed us on hold. Most of us believe there is going to be some kind of announcement in the next couple of weeks that will affect all staff in the plant. Time will tell.

So, I am really using "one day at a time." I want to come from a place where I believe that I can do something good for others while I'm in the plant. That there is a reason I am there. I am going to try not to fall into a place of self-pity or anger. I must tell that, upon my return to work, when my manager told me what I would be doing the exact same work that I was told three months ago was no longer required, I became angry. Not at him, but at the circumstances. I apologized afterwards but can still feel that anger simmering deep in my belly. Acceptance is so important for me today.

Today, I am gratefully sober and clean. There has been no desire to drink over all this. My attitude is so much more positive that it was three, four years ago. My partner and I are still talking, still close. I know that I have lessons to learn, that the classroom of life is open. (I also know that I will have occasions of sadness, self-pity, and anger for the next while, it's just the way I am.)

Each day I pray that I would learn to trust my Higher Power more. And, in my circumstances of today, I find I have reason to. Thank you.

Page 68 in the Big Book reads:

Perhaps there is a better way - we think so. For we are now on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. We are in the world to play the role He assigns. Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity.

Photo Credit: DigiDragon

Trusting

There have been a few times in the past week where I've wanted to just pinch myself to reassure myself this isn't a dream. Sitting in class, participating in conversations I had never imagined I could have, staying right sized and hearing new ideas, and enjoying the enthusiasm of young adults, these experiences are so different than the heavy negativism I have experienced at work. Keeping up with homework and service work and even found time to play in the surf last Saturday. (The waves were scary big.) I never had believed that life could give so much when it was being lived.

I was layed off a few months ago, and shared my intentions with my employer about returning to school. There were a lot of issues around my layoff, more than I want to go into here, but there were lawyers involved and stuff around the legality of the layoff. It's just a long long story. The gist of it is that I could only attend school with the blessing of my employer, and that they at any time, could pull the pin and I would lose the financial funding to attend school. I could still attend school with out that financial support but it would place a big burden upon my life partner and I've burdened her enough in the past. Not going to happen.

So where I was going? The week before school started, my employer called and told me they had no intention of calling my back to work and that going to school would be a great idea. So that's what I did. Now last week, I was called again and I have been told to report to work tomorrow, doing the exact same work I was doing when I was layed off, work that I was told is meaningless. I'm confused. Friends at work think there is some legal finaglings goin on. So since last week, I've been contacting various people at work, trying to understand what is going on. I should know this afternoon the final decision. I've still been going to classes this week, hoping to keep on going. It's been a very emotional week, happy to be at school, struggling with accepting I might have to go to work.

So I sit in the hands of my Higher Power, trying to trust that what ever is going to happen is meant to be. I've spent the whole summer jumping through hopes to get into school and I have learned a lot in that process. I will keep learning, no matter where I am. The following paragraph from the chapter on Step 12 is where I would like to be one day:

When we developed still more, we discovered the best possible source of emotional stability to be God Himself. We found that dependence upon His perfect justice, forgiveness, and love was healthy, and that it would work where nothing else would. It we really depended upon God, we couldn't very well play God to our fellows nor would we feel the urge wholly to rely on human protection and care. These were the new attitudes that finally brought many of us an inner strength and peace that could not be deeply shaken by the shortcomings of others or by any calamity not of our own making. (Page 116, Twelve and Twelve)

Photo Credit: moonlight on celluloid